Chapter Twelve
Carly was more than grateful that Donovan had pulled her away from assistant’s job when he did. If she thought it was hard working when she thought she was only carrying one baby, she had no idea how difficult it would become when she was carrying four.
“You are young and very healthy, Ms. Martin, which is a very good thing. However, with any number of multiple births, you are considered a risky pregnancy, and that is not something that can be ignored.” Dr. Vargeese had been very strict on that point, and both she and Donovan had listened to his strictures.
“Towards the end of the pregnancy, you might be on total bed rest,” he had said, “but there is no reason to think it will get to that. At the moment, eat well, rest when you feel tired and simply use your best judgment. It is better to be a little careful now than a great deal more sorry later on.”
Carly had thought that that meant something like making sure she did her gentle exercises or that she got all of her vitamins. Donovan at least agreed on that point, but it didn’t stop there.
A few days after they had fallen into bed together, she awoke to find him measuring the steps from the front door down to the path and frowning. Dressed in her nightgown, still blinking in the bright morning sun, she had tilted her head at him.
“What’s going on?” she asked, bemused.
“This step needs a handrail,” he had said seriously, glancing up at her. “It’s steep enough that you could hurt yourself if you stumbled.”
“I’m pretty sure-footed,” she said, and Donovan snorted in return.
“You are now,” he said. “You may be less so when have a belly pushed out in front of you or when you are carrying two little ones.”
It didn’t strike her until she had had some breakfast that Donovan meant that he would be carrying the other two, and the thought made her feel warm inside.
That wasn’t the end of it, either. Donovan seemed to throw all of his energy into one of three things. He was either fixing up the house, learning about babies or with her. It was a little startling to have a man of Donovan’s reputation wondering out loud about whether the ancient kitchen needed more baby-proofing, but there was a part of Carly that liked it very much indeed. With Donovan close by, it felt as if a circle had closed, as if they were together for a purpose. With Donovan, she was safe and happy, and she could feel herself pulled into the sweetness of anticipation, a state she had always felt exclusively reserved for mothers.
Of course Donovan worked, though she didn’t realize at first. After she went to bed, sometimes when she was just drifting off after a spirited bout of lovemaking, he would rise up from their bed. If Carly caught him at it, she might reach for him, making a soft noise of protest. It invariably brought him back to her, touching her and soothing her until she fell asleep in earnest.
“What do you do when you rise up from bed so late?” she asked one morning. Donovan shrugged.
“The world doesn’t grind to a halt just because I’m not in London anymore, pet,” he said. “There’s always work to be done, deals to be cut.”
She reached to touch his hand gently, and she could tell he was surprised but pleased. He was still strangely touched when she reached for him, she could tell.
“I wish you didn’t have to,” she said. “Sometimes, I wish it could be just the two of us like this… Or, well, the six of us, I guess.”
Her reward was a soft smile that warmed her right to her bones.
“I know,” he said, lifting her hand so he could kiss it. “I’m working to ensure that there are many days where it’s just you and I and the children as well.”
He kept on working, but then a week later, he brought her to Dublin, a short trip that nonetheless eased some of restlessness. He showed her the house where he had stayed as a student, he introduced her to some of his favorite museums, and when she tired with surprising rapidity, he laughed and sent for room service. Carly was sure that she had never been more decadent than this in her entire life, being hand-fed the most dainty morsels in an enormous hotel bed, the man she had always dreamed of smiling at her with bright silvery eyes.
***
Donovan chewed over the idea of being away from her side for hours before she finally told him to go.
“Please, there are plenty of people for me to call if anything goes wrong, and if worse comes to worse, I’m wearing that panic button that you gave me. I’ll be fine, and we just spoke to Dr. Vargeese yesterday. He said that I’m as healthy as a horse, even if I feel a little more than a hippo.”
Donovan eyes her warily. At seven months pregnant, Carly had to admit that she might look a little hapless, but she was far from helpless.
“I’m still not sure if it’s a wonderful idea.”
“I will be fine,” she said for the eighth time. “Please. It’ll be good for both of us.”
“Not me,” Donovan complained. “I’ll miss being with you. Are you saying you won’t miss me?”
“Of course I’ll miss you. I love you.”
The words hung in the air between them, the first time she had ever said them out loud, and Carly felt her face redden with embarrassment. She couldn’t take them back, she wouldn’t, but God, she felt like a bumpkin. Donovan had made his position on this arrangement clear, and now this.
“Go to Dublin. Take the plane if you feel like you need to be that fast. You’ll be back before nightfall. Go.” A small and secret part of her wanted to hear him say those words back, wanted to hear them more than anything, but he only took her in his arms. Was his kiss somehow more passionate than it had been before, his embrace somehow more sweet? She told herself it was her imagination.
“I’ll be back by tonight.” he promised, and she sighed, nodding.
***
On the drive to Dublin, Donovan wondered all over again what kind of strange situation he had gotten himself into. The words that had fallen from Carly’s lips... he still shivered when he thought of them. They had fairly stunned him, and by the time he realized that he wanted nothing more than to say them in return, she had all but pushed him out the door.
If she was any other woman, he would have guessed that she was making a very practiced mistake, that she was trying to snare him. However, he had spent more time with Carly than he had with anyone else in his adult life, and he knew that she didn’t have that kind of deception in her. She was as honest and pure as a long summer day, so that meant…
He loved her.
Donovan always thought that when it came to something like this, that he would never know what to say or do. He started to smile. He knew exactly what he was going to do. There was a jeweler in Dublin that had been in the same location for almost two hundred years. If he paid them very well, perhaps they could finish a ring for him by the time he had to return that night.
***
She hadn’t meant to snoop. She really hadn’t. The problem was that with her belly pushed out and her mind on other things, it was far too easy to tip against the table with her hip, and before she knew it, Donovan’s tablet and papers had gone flying.
“Great,” she said with a sigh. She admitted that she had been a little distracted ever since she said those terribly important words to him. The truth was that Carly’s mind was whirling. Everything was going to change now, wasn’t it? Actually, she wasn’t sure what would be worse, Donovan being indifferent to her declaration or Donovan actively rejecting it. She didn’t think she could actually live with the idea of him turning down her love, even if they entered into some sort of strange partnership for the children after she gave birth.
The idea that he loved her in return was something that she could barely begin to entertain. Donovan was a man who did everything with great passion. Surely if he loved her, by now he would have told her?
Carly pushed the disruption from her mind. Right now, her goal was to stay as healthy as she could for her babies, for their babies. Bracing herself as the doctor had told her to do, she bent to gather up the papers and the tablet. At her touch the machine turned on, and she found herself looking at a map of a very familiar area.
Frowning, she recognized the land around Loch Naine, and the resort plans that Donovan had been working through. Her heart dropped somewhere to the vicinity of her toes. Biting her lip, she paged away from the map to find herself confronted with an email.
Looks good, can’t wait to see the resort in action.
Carly felt as if the far away sea was roaring in her ears. Surely he couldn’t have been planning to go ahead with the resort? He surely didn’t think that he was going to take over her property just because they were together.
But are we really together? Are we together, or is he just invested in the children? What does he truly want? Could it be me?
She knew he wanted her in his bed. She knew he wanted her as the mother of his children. However, the idea of whether he wanted her for herself, that was something else, and looking at the schematics for a resort he said he had abandoned months before, she realized she had her answer to that as well.
Donovan was a man who made the deals he had to. He wanted everything around her, and she herself was the price he paid.
Carly sat on the couch, her mind a perfect blank. She couldn’t think, but she knew that she had to. She might not have been able to do so for her own sake, but for her children’s sake, she could do anything. She would never let her children have a father who saw their mother as a mere convenience.
Some timeless moment later, she finally managed to stand up. Carly felt a little careless on her feet, but it didn’t matter as she made her way to the bedroom. She found Donovan’s suitcase, and she started packing.
***
It was nearly dark by the time Donovan got back. Carly could hear his car in the drive, could hear his bright whistle as he made his way to the door. For a moment, she wished she could just tear the knowledge that she had found out previously out of her head. She wanted to be who she was in the morning. There was no going back, however, and she stood as he walked in.
“Evening, pet,” Donovan said. “I’ve missed you!”
“What do you think I am?” she demanded, and she had the pleasure of watching him narrow his eyes in confusion.
“What kind of question is that?”
“A simple one, I think,” Carly said bitterly. “You think you can move forward with building plans right under my nose? What, did you think that you were going to sell my house out from underneath me?”
Donovan stared at her as if he had no idea what she was talking about, and that only made her more enraged.
“You never stopped trying to move the Loch Naine plans forward, did you?” she demanded. “You never did, you were just planning on squatting here like a spider until what? Until I gave in and let you build a resort over my grandmother’s house?”
“Carly, it isn’t like that, please, you ought not be shouting like this.”
“Don’t tell me what to do,” she raged. She could feel herself getting lightheaded from the anger, and she couldn’t stop. “You’re the one who can’t be trusted. I heard you! I heard you talking about that poor girl from Morocco, and her baby.” She felt dizzy, as if she might fall, but when Donovan reached for her, she shoved him off with a strength that she did not know she possessed. “No, don’t.”
“How do you know about Rose? She...” Realization dawned over Donovan’s face. “You heard me talking to my assistant. That’s why you told me you never wanted to see me again that day.”
Carly could still remember that pain, and it mingled with what she felt now.
“Yes. I can’t... You need to go. Please, please, just go.”
“Carly listen to me. Rose had pulled that stunt on at least two friends of mine. It was a known trick, and she was a fool for pulling it on me. And the resort, that’s different, listen—”
“No! God, I can’t listen to anything else you say, I swear, I’m going to go crazy.” Carly burst into tears, which was somehow even more maddening because she wasn’t grieving, was she? She was angry.
Donovan stared at her for a moment, and finally, he nodded stiffly. “I am leaving before you do yourself harm,” he said. “But perhaps if you calm down, perhaps if you can think for a moment, look at the rest of the paperwork.”
He took the tablet from his bag and laid it on the coffee table. Carly stared at him, her eyes wet and her entire body shaking. He walked out the door, and she crumpled in on herself as he closed the door behind him. She couldn’t help a sharp cry from escaping her lips, and for what felt like a long time, she merely wept.
Why had he told her to look at the paperwork? Why had he done that? Her fingers trembling, she scrolled through the papers, not sure what she was seeing until she saw the word Iceland. Iceland? She read on, her heart beating in her chest, and she saw what a fool she had been. He hadn’t been selling her off her land. Another piece of paper told her about a trust the funds from the deal were meant to establish, one for four children, and for her as well.
Understanding flooded her with remorse and terror. Carly lurched to her feet, flailing towards the door. She knew it was too late, that she had not once but twice sent the man she cared about most away. She couldn’t stand it, and she knew that he would never forgive her, but she had to try, didn’t she?
She hit the door with a clatter, and her hand clutched at the rail that Donovan had put there. The cool early autumn air felt frigid suddenly, and she felt goosebumps race up and down her arms.
“Oh, please don’t be gone yet,” she said out loud, and to her shock, there was a response.
“Carly?”She spun around to see Donovan standing against the house, his hands in his pockets. In the warm light that spilled out of the doorway, she saw a look of concern on his face. She was torn by relief and guilt, fear and of course love. She managed to say his name, and then it was too much.
The last thing that Carly was aware of as she slipped into a dead faint was the sound of his voice calling her name over and over again.
***
When Carly opened her eyes, she whimpered. She felt somehow both too hot and too cold, and the air was full of an unfamiliar scent, strange and antiseptic. Before she could become truly afraid, however, there was a strong hand wrapped around hers, and the rim of a glass placed against her lips. She hadn’t known that she was parched before, but now she did. She drank the glass dry, and then she felt better.
It both was and wasn’t a surprise when she saw Donovan standing there in the dimness of her hospital room, placing the glass back on the table before sitting beside her again.
“Donovan...”
“Don’t ever do that again,” he said curtly, and Carly writhed with self-disgust.
“I’m sorry,” she said, her eyes welling up with tears. “I am, I am so sorry, I didn’t mean to accuse you like that, I just saw the papers, and it was like I couldn’t think.”
Donovan looked at her startled.
“That? Don’t worry about that, Carly. God, no. I was saying that you should never fall down in a faint in front of me again. I was so frightened that I did not know what to do. I might have fainted myself but I knew that you needed me. That you loved me, and that our children needed me as well. I was scared out of my wits; I don’t think I’ve ever been so terrified before.”
Carly blinked. “Wait, you mean you don’t care?”
Donovan shot her a wry look. “Believe me, pet, we are going to have a calm talk about your tendency to accuse me of things before you have every single fact in front of you. However, Dr. Vargeese was speaking with me, and as he puts it, I’m getting off lightly compared to what he’s seen.”
For a moment, Carly was confused, and then she realized what he meant.
“You mean my pregnancy is making me like this?” She bit her lip. “It’s a convenient excuse, Donovan, but I can’t just blame my hormones on this. I’m the one who went off half-cocked, and oh God, I’m so embarrassed.”
His warm hand over hers made her look up in surprise, and he looked very stern.
“Stop that. If I am not angry at you, you are not allowed to be angry at yourself. You are dealing with a great deal of change in your body with regards to chemicals right this moment. I do not think that it’s quite you. I’m willing to wait until you work it out of your system, and yes, then we will talk.”
He paused for a moment, and it looked to Carly as if he were marshaling his strength. Her heart filled with dread. Was he leaving her? Was this the rejection she had feared?
“I’m so tired, Carly.”
“Of what?” Her voice trembled like a withered leaf on the vine.
“Of pretending I do not feel for you the way I do.” Carly froze in shock as Donovan pulled out a small wooden box, elegant and refined. He opened it and revealed a gorgeous diamond ring, surrounded with a set of smaller rubies as dark as heart'’s blood.
“I love you, Carly. Will you marry me? Will you be my bride and the mother of my children?” Now she was crying again, and the tears were falling from joy. She threw herself into his arms, holding tightly on to him, so tight she knew she would never, ever let go.
“Yes, yes, yes,” she sobbed. “I love you, I love you so much.”